


No Bonds

by Alsike



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cheating, Empathy, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-22 04:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17053019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alsike/pseuds/Alsike
Summary: "do you ever see someone in some quiet intimate moment and suddenly love them so desperately you feel like you’re dying"Alura has. She's been in love that way and had someone love her back just the same. She's felt the welling of emotion, the sudden connection with a stranger, until you know what they're feeling and they know you that way too. An empathic connection with a lover is supposed to be the ultimate bond. It's supposed to be the one thing that will always bring you back together again.It's hard to believe that it's not enough.But sometimes it's not.





	No Bonds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kendrickhier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrickhier/gifts).



> A Soulmates AU based on this amazing post:  
> http://karatam.tumblr.com/post/178710327894/strangerose-liquidlightning

_Nobonds_ was a grungy little club a few NCTA stops away from campus and a few farther away from the house Alura, her husband, and her 9 year-old daughter shared in Little Krypton. It was not a place she frequented, but Astra had suggested it, and it seemed like a place Alura might dare to go. For one, thank Rao, it was not a student bar--Alura loved her law students _in class_ , she did not love them out on the town, (or when grading their papers, or when despairing for the future of justice in her city) and she definitely didn't need to be seen by them when doing . . . this. For two, the name _Nobonds_ made it very clear what the attitude of the clientele would be. They were there to drink and relax, not judge, and not take it home with them at the end of the night.

Perhaps some others would be doing what she was doing. Perhaps there, people wouldn't be shocked at the thought of cheating on a soulbond.

It wasn't as if she'd made the decision lightly. But she was so tired. She just wanted to touch someone who wouldn't demand that she _feel_ anything.

 _Stop shutting me out_ , Zor kept saying. When he wanted sex he wanted to _commune_ , he wanted to know she felt as good as he did, but dealing with someone else's emotions made it hard for her to relax. Then he got angry (guilty and ashamed) that she wasn't enjoying it, and told her she wasn't normal, that her ability to tighten down a bond until the emotions coming through it didn't bother her was a sign of sociopathy.

He'd apologize later. But it didn't stop her from being furious at him, and she was _good_ at lashing out through a bond. It was ironic that she and Zor were so good at feedback loops when it came to negative emotions when they couldn't manage them with positive ones. In the end, it felt like a better choice to just close down, narrow their bond, stay controlled, safe, protected. But that started the whole cycle again.

He didn't like it when she pinched their bond closed so she could focus. But he was full of so many emotions all the time, excitement and anger and pleasure. It just was so hard to get any work done with him feeling things at her all the time. Maybe Alura did have an anti-social response to bonding. But being able to snip a bond closed when she needed to or pinching it tight was a skill she'd needed growing up with Astra. Astra at least had never held Alura's control of her end of their bond against her.

Alura could forgive herself not wanting to manage someone else's emotions as well as her own, but this, seeking out sex with a stranger because she wanted to feel something entirely physical for once, that wasn't forgivable.

She was doing it anyway.

Zor and Kara were away for the weekend, on a trip to Washington DC to visit Zor’s parents and every science museum on the Mall. (He had a plan to get Kara into the sciences and away from the law careers that Alura and his brother pursued and he dismissed as self-aggrandizing and greedy. Alura had given up fighting him on that long ago.) Alura was so tired of being nothing but miserable. Even if it was just a temporary measure, a distraction, she had to try something. Astra had told her that she couldn't bear how she was feeling either and she was going to close their bond if she kept on being self-sacrificing. Alura needed to feel something else for just a little while. She needed to remember that she _could._

So tonight she'd dressed up, in a way she hadn't since before she'd seen Zor on the train to school, counting his money and worrying his lip, and felt a half-bond form. He'd been _so human_ , doing something normal, worrying, entirely caught up in himself. It made him real. Descartes was known for "I think therefore I am, you speak therefore you are" but that wasn't true. Speech was too often cooperative, too often formal, to make it clear that this other person had an id, an ego, and a superego of their own. But seeing someone preoccupied by a solitary task, a small intimate moment, intended for themselves alone, that was enough to know that other people were real. That was what triggered soulbonding. Once you saw them as a real whole person, with an interior life, you began to feel what they did. Faint at first, but undeniable, their emotions were like a taste or scent in the air. If it became a mutual bond, which it had with Zor not long after he'd glanced up and seen her watching and smiled, the feelings were stronger, more distinct, and, with prolonged contact, communicative. Feeling your bond's emotions passively was one thing, but you could also put your emotions on someone, _make_ them suffer them. Or, alternatively, offer them firm support when they were hurt.

Most people would have thought of the second one first, but most people didn't grow up with Astra as a sister. Her connection with Astra had always been intense, mutual defense or internecine war, and perhaps it was that that made her doubt the cultural belief that romantic soulbonds--ones that were accompanied by mutual sexual desire--were always primary. Scientifically, all mutual bonds functioned in the same way; romantic bonds, friend-bonds, and familial bonds were identical outside of their context. It was external expectations surrounding different kinds of relationships that encouraged people to put romantic ones first when planning their futures. Romantic bonds were rare, and because of that rarity were supposed to be all absorbing and permanent, while familial bonds were backgrounded and comforting, and friend-bonds were transient. That wasn’t Alura’s experience at all. For her, familial bonds could be all absorbing and permanent--as with Astra--but they could also be transient--as with her father. She'd known many friend-bonds to last for people's entire lives. And, as a lawyer, she knew how many romantic bonds ended up quietly and shamefully put aside. Just because you had bonded with someone and had been sexually compatible with them for a while, it didn't mean you would end up liking them for the long term.

Unfortunately, she had come upon that realization a little too late.

As a college junior, bonding with a stranger whom she was sexually attracted to had been intense, exciting, overwhelming. Astra said it had made her no fun. Alura wanted to spend all her time with Zor, wanted to learn everything about him, understand why those waves of feeling tasted the way they did. She'd been in love and had loved being in love. It hadn't mattered that she didn't go out anymore, that some of her friend-bonds slipped away. She'd been too absorbed in Zor. When she'd gotten pregnant senior year, it had felt perfect, fitting into her five-year-plan like it was meant to be. She was due in July, she'd start law school in September, and children born to bonded couples scored on average ten points higher on the success and happiness indexes. They got married in April. They graduated in May, and everything had been exactly how it ought to be.

Ten years later, she was starting to think Astra had been right. (She would never, ever tell her this.) A soulbond was nice, but she could have gone out more, tried a wider variety of things, strayed from her five-year-plan and been happier for the experience.

"It's not actually too late," Astra had told her. “You’re not dead. And if you don’t want to be married for a night—“ She shrugged, eyes flicking to the bond-bracelet Alura wore. “—you don’t have to be.”

Now Alura was here.

Stalking across the threshold on the heels that had been a gift from her sister (they'd made Zor angry too, though he hadn't said anything. He always felt that Astra was pushing her to be someone _improper.)_ Alura made her way into _Nobonds_ and over to the bar. Ordering a Japanese made the bartender frown, but Alura leaned against the bar and scanned the room while he hurriedly looked the ingredients up on his phone.

She was getting looks. She sipped at her drink, feeling her hand shake. _What was she thinking, thinking she could hook up with someone, thinking she could have meaningless sex and then walk back into her everyday life?_ This had been a terrible idea. She needed shots to settle her nerves.

"Hey," a man—probably ten years younger than her—offered her a smile. "I noticed you thinking. May I ask what's on your mind?"

Alura flinched back. It was a common enough pick-up line but it was meant to sound like a halfbond, as if he was interested enough in her to already know what she was feeling. The last thing Alura wanted was for anyone to know how she was feeling. He turned his attention to the matchbooks and fumbled with them in an obvious invitation for her to wonder if he was shy. It was _pathetic_.

"I was thinking about shots," she said flatly, and then turned to order two from the bartender.

The guy, unchastened, leaned in so their arms brushed. "You have beautiful eyes."

"I know," Alura said, and knocked one of the shots back. This was already going poorly. She needed to be drunk.

Astra had given her instructions on how to hook up without bonding. As the last thing Alura wanted was _another_ bond, she would follow her sister's advice exactly.

There were four rules to sex without bonding, Astra told her.

Rule 1: No real names -- not being properly addressed in the throes of passion makes it harder to feel comfortable in the way that prompted bonding.

Rule 2: The better the sex the faster you leave -- it's unlikely to bond while having sex, but cowlicks and coffee and that post-coital warm glow are a recipe for disaster.

Rule 3: If you're going to drink, drink a _lot_ and/or do enough drugs so you black out and forget anything that might have seemed like a bond at the time.

Rule 4: If, by any chance, you do bond, do not get their phone number, forget their address. If you don't see them again for 10 days, the bond is almost guaranteed to close itself. New bonds need lots of reinforcement. Ignore it and it will go away.

Alura needed many more shots before she'd have a chance of blacking out and Rule 3 could kick in. She finished the second, showed the bartender 3 more fingers, and looked for a place to sit and watch the floor.

Across the bar was an empty stool, far enough away from the bathroom and the taps that the space around it was dim and less crowded. In the very corner, on the neighboring stool, was a young woman. She was pretty, but not dressed for company, unless the company she sought was a very specific type, which this bar didn't seem particularly geared towards. Her dark hair was tied back in a short tail and in the heat of the bar she'd stripped off whatever jacket or overshirt she'd worn and sat there in a singlet, cammo cargo pants, and army boots. Her mouth was tight as she stared into her drink as if she didn't like it. She seemed utterly uninterested in everyone around her and therefore entirely safe.

Another man sidled up to Alura. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I've been lost in your eyes for ages."

Alura cringed and started towards the end of the bar. When had men become so needy? Though perhaps they always were. Zor was just as desperate for affirmation that him being himself, making no particular effort, was enough for her to feel love for him. That was how people said soulbonds were supposed to work. But they didn’t. Not for her.

She felt around inside herself for the quiet flood of Zor's feelings. He seemed content, pleased in the way he was in the evenings when she wasn't around to be grouchy at him for watching television instead of washing dishes. He was happier without her. Sometimes she wished he'd realize that. Sometimes she just wished that when he felt how unhappy she was, he wouldn't always think it was her own fault and that she was feeling that way to hurt him.

Just as she was in diving range of the free bar stool, a third man approached. "I've been waiting for you. I can feel the pain in your eyes, can you feel mine?"

"Can you feel my irritation? Because if you can't you're about to feel my fist," Alura snapped at him. "I've found my friend, please leave."

She sat on the stool and swung around, clicking her Japanese onto the bar a little more firmly than necessary. The stool swung a little too far and she found herself staring at the young woman who was staring back at her, a little bemusedly. Alura narrowed her eyes. "Pretend to be my friend or don't look at me, but if you give me a bond line, I am not responsible for where my drink is going."

The young woman snorted. "Don't worry," she said, clearly amused. "I'm not trolling for a 'connection.'” She paused, then offered a quick smirk. “But I’m definitely going to use the fist line the next time I get hit on by some sad dude."

Alura narrowed her eyes. The young woman turned back to her own drink.

The weight of all of this settled on her shoulders. It had been a bad idea to begin with. There was no way to fix a relationship by simply pretending that she wasn’t in it for a while. And even if casual sex would make her feel better, it wasn’t attainable. Either everyone here was decidedly unappealing or she’d forgotten how to be attracted to someone. Alura had a suspicion that it was her fault. Everything else seemed to be.

Her phone buzzed. Alura took it out and checked the text from her sister.

_How's it going?_

_Why are men so needy?_ Alura texted back.

_Probably because you remind them of their mothers._

_Fuck you._

_I can’t help it if cute young things find me daring and adventurous, and you come off as uptight and fussy_

_You keep this up and I’ll tell your current ‘cute young thing’ about your weird soap opera fetish_

_No need, Alex is asleep in my lap right now--passed out during the third ep of Broken Bonds: Broken Wings_

_Oh Rao, you made her watch the one with the literal angels?_

_You just can’t appreciate unironic camp :P_

_It isn’t camp if it isn’t ironic._

_You wouldn’t know camp if it bit you on the ass. :P :P_

Alura sighed and tucked her phone away. Her sister was the worst. Also, Alura could feel that Astra was totally content right now, with her 'friend' curled up in her arms, and it was incredibly aggravating, and unfair. She also knew that if she pushed her annoyance at Astra right now, Astra would just laugh at her.

The bartender delivered the three shots she'd ordered. Finally. Even if she couldn’t hook up, she could at least get very drunk. She picked up the first one and found the young woman beside her still making faces at her drink.

"Is that . . . bourbon?" Alura asked.

The young woman glanced over, expression sharp, as if she were a little affronted at being spoken to. "SoCo," she said.

"Straight?" Now Alura was making the face.

The young woman's lips twisted in a wry half smile. "I should have started somewhere else. I'm not drunk enough for this yet."

Alura nudged one of her shots over. "Fireball chaser?" She'd finished her Japanese and held that glass out. "Give me half. Choke it down and move along, since you seem to have a plan and I am looking to blackout heavily."

Now the young woman looked really startled. But she poured half the Southern Comfort into Alura's empty glass and then raised her own in an awkward salute.

"What are we drinking to?" Alura asked.

"Um, Jason," the young woman said.

"To Jason," Alura said, and an unexpected soft sad look flashed across the young woman's face. She knocked back the Southern Comfort and the expression was replaced by a grimace. She kicked the fireball down after it and winced at the burn.

"To Jason," the young woman repeated. "And his horrible taste in drinks."

Alura didn't actually mind Southern Comfort, though it would have been better mixed with Coke. She drank it and tipped back her chaser shot easily. She didn't ask about Jason. She'd seen her sister drinking on her own often enough and the small silent toasts she'd do.

Astra was always careful to keep their bond narrow when she had nights like that, but Alura was familiar with the faint bitter taste of melancholy that accompanied them. Afterwards, Alura would usually get her sister's boots off and put her to bed. Zor didn't understand that either. He questioned how the often vicious use of their bond, a bond that they'd both shut down entirely at one point or another, a bond they both kept controlled and protected, could be meaningful, could still mean they cared. For him a bond didn't count unless they were _always_ sharing and supportive. But sometimes being supportive was respecting the other person's need to be alone with their feelings.

Alura took another shot.

The young woman was watching her, looking a little impressed. "How much do you think it's going to take for you to blackout?" she asked.

Alura considered the question. "I'm not sure. I've never blacked out before. I mostly drink hard liquor with my sister. She's competitive. Last time I think we finished a bottle of vodka together? So . . . it might take a lot."

The young woman laughed. It made her pretty in a different way than most. Some people looked open when they laughed, but she looked closed off, like her amusement was a secret she enjoyed keeping to herself. Alura liked that, it was another thing that made her seem safe. "Seriously? Though, to be fair, if I lived closer to my sister I'd probably have a higher tolerance too."

She played with the shot glass, seeming to get lost in thought. Alura watched her fingers move and relaxed slightly. She could watch this young woman exist and feel no hint of a bond emerging. In fact, she could entirely ignore the fact that she was human and objectify her. For all the young woman clearly wasn't trying, she was very pretty, milky bronze skin, sharp cheekbones and dark, beautifully shaped eyes. The singlet revealed cleanly defined musculature in her arms, and though it was hard to be certain while sitting, she seemed petite, but sturdy, and Alura bit her lip, considering what the round curve of her hips would mean for the definition on her thighs.

The thoughts themselves were unusual. She didn't tend to look at women, not with intent. Astra called her a 'straight bisexual' while she herself was a 'queer bisexual.' This was insulting, and probably offensive, but in her case at least, not inaccurate. Alura had spent high school learning how to excel in a heterosexual world. It had become her default behavior pattern, even though the older she got the more she bridled at its expectations. Astra had taken one look at the course requirements and said 'fuck that' and proceeded to go her own way. Alura's attraction to women was another part of her that she had cut off when she'd chosen to put her bond with Zor ahead of experience, experimentation and discovery. It was another empty space in her life.

She found herself reaching for the place her wedding bracelet should be and wasn't, wanting to twist and worry it. She drew her fingers back in a crisp short jerk.

The young woman looked, and then glanced up at her face, wide-eyed.

Alura glared at her. They'd had a deal, unspoken perhaps, but just as binding. _You don't ask, I don't ask. If you notice anything, keep it to yourself._ The young woman's lips curled slightly and she glanced back down at her empty glass. She understood.

But in staring at her glass, the young woman's shoulders drooped, a shaky sort of exhaustion wrapping around her that Alura didn't like. She wasn't looking for a connection, she'd said, but that didn't mean she wasn't looking for a distraction.

"What's next?" Alura asked. She gave her a slight nudge. "It's time to order."

"Mm?" The young woman sounded confused, but didn't shy away from the touch.

"On your list."

The young woman narrowed her eyes at Alura. "How do you know I have a list?"

"Because you said SoCo was a bad place to start."

The young woman smiled wryly and nodded. She gave Alura a short sharp glance with a twist of her head that felt like an information-seeking probe. "Well deduced.”

Alura crossed her arms, unexpectedly pleased. The phrasing seemed to indicate that the young woman was smart and literate. Those were attractive qualities. Alura had always found it difficult to be attracted to anyone she considered less than an intellectual equal.

“Next is Maxy. White Russians."

Alura signaled the bartender. "White Russians, please. Two."

The young woman raised an eyebrow. "Just inviting yourself to join me? Bossy, aren’t you?"

Alura lifted the last remaining shot and met the young woman's eyes over it, letting hers grow narrow enough that her mascaraed lashes darkened her view. "I told you, I have definite plans for this evening."

Then she took it, and setting the glass down, caught a glimpse of the young woman's eyes, wide, her lips parted.

 _Good_ , something dark inside her said. Maybe she'd get what she came for after all.

Maxy's White Russians were followed by Guido's Long Island Ice Teas, and after that, Alura couldn't feel her feet. She was a little dizzy, and the young woman--who'd said her name was Jane--Alura doubted it, but as Alura had said her name was Anna, there wasn't any room to judge--kept laughing at her when she made a joke, or bossed her around a little, telling her to order, to finish her drink, to wipe her mouth when she'd chuckled halfway into the Long Island and splashed it. Jane touched her too, just enough--a hand on her forearm, a brush of elbows. Afterwards, she'd glance over at Alura, biting her lower lip and smiling just a tiny bit, while maintaining slightly-narrowed eye contact that looked like the best combination of interest and deference. _I want you. I want you to know it. But I'm not going to do anything about it. That's up to you._

It had been a long time since Alura had been given that kind of control.

They set down Kenny's jaegerbombs, empty, and 'Jane' cast her a sidelong glance. "Do you want to smoke?" she asked. She reached into her pocket, thumbing out a pack of cigarettes with delicate, graceful hands. She'd probably smoke prettily too, her gestures brusque and boyish, but the lines of her body, the curve of her lips, lovely and feminine.

"Sure," Alura said. She hadn't smoked in ten years. She didn't mean it. She put her hand on the rough canvas of Jane's cargo pants, on her thigh. It tensed, rock hard under her hand.

Jane gave her another quick taut look, then one to her hand where it put pressure on her thigh, then she nodded. "Let's go."

Jane left money on the bar and Alura closed out her tab. There was a pleasing brusqueness to the way the young woman frowned, asking 'do you have a coat?' 'no?' touching her arm just enough to guide her toward the door, clearing the way politely. It was gentlemanly, in a way that an actual man hadn't done for Alura in a long time.

In the alley, Jane fumbled in her pocket, thumping a cigarette out of the carton with a lack of grace that suggested little practice, and tucking it in her mouth as she found a lighter. It was a zippo, and in the flare of the flame, it was engraved. _Rachel Turner_. Another mourning ritual. For someone so young she carried so much sadness, friends lost and bonds broken.

Alura knew what it felt like for bonds to break. People said 'replace them,' like they did when a cat died. And just like a cat, a new bond could be lovely, but it never replaced the old one. It never sealed off the aperture that led to a space where a person had once been. But there could be comfort without empathy. This young woman likely needed some solely physical affection as much as Alura did.

She lifted the tip of the cigarette with a worried purse of her lips, flicked the lighter again, bringing it up, the light flickering over her skin, lighting the hollows made by her cheekbones, casting shadows over her eyes. No. Alura didn’t want to smoke at all.

Alura caught the young woman's cheek in her palm and knocked the cigarette from her mouth. She bent and kissed her, firm and steady, not waiting for permission. The young woman's lips parted under hers in surprise, there was a fumble, the clink of the zippo hitting the pavement, and then the young woman's hand gripped her shoulder, the other closing around the back of her neck, a mouth moving against hers.

Her skin felt soft under Alura's hand. Her grip was firm, her mouth hot and tasting of spiced liquor, her kiss tactile, careful and thoughtful. For all her boyish attitude, she melted under Alura's hands like milk chocolate. Alura pulled her in close, loving the flex of the muscles of her back under her grip as she arched, tilting her head back to change the angle of the kiss, responsive and receptive.

Alura drew back. "I don't want to smoke," she said, keeping her hand clasping the young woman's cheek, her thumb pressing lightly against her lips for silence. "I want to take you home."

Jane looked up at her, not pulling away. Her eyes were intense but unreadable. Then she nodded; a slight smile flexed under Alura's thumb. Alura released her. "Okay."

Alura grinned to herself. "You live near here?"

Jane shrugged more comfortably into her jacket, then scooped up the lighter and stuffed it into her pocket. "Yeah, for a few more days. Just around the corner, two stories up."

She started walking down the street. Alura followed her, feeling the shift of awareness that accompanied them--the short glances the young woman gave her, Alura’s inability to ignore the way she moved, the heat in her palms that burned for further touch.

"Another tour?" Alura asked, and immediately regretted it. Personal questions weren't what this encounter was about. This young woman might be wounded and unsure, but if she wasn't judging Alura for what she was doing, then Alura wanted to offer her all the privacy she desired.

Jane gave her a sharp look, then nodded. "Got a promotion and everything." But there was nothing pleased in her tone. “Dad’s very proud.” Then she flinched.

It was a short walk, and then a quick flight of steps to the entry doors. Jane was unlocking the door between the mailroom and the hall and Alura contemplated her in the bright interior lights. She looked softer than she had in the bar, the small bun of her hair fallen to the nape of her neck, and not as young as she had at first. But she also looked harder, more brittle and pained.

"Don't tell me," Alura said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I don't want to know."

Jane glanced at her hand, then looked up at her face and smiled. "Same."

Up another two flights of stairs, she opened her apartment door and Alura followed her inside, immediately judging the space by scent and feel and contents. It was a studio, and Jane was half moved out already. The bed was a double, the boxspring flat on the floor. Cardboard boxes lined one of the walls, everything stacked carefully and exactly, the bed made with precision. There was a houseplant on one of the boxes. It was an anonymous space, not the space of a person. That was good, another moment that could have triggered bonding slid by untouched.

Jane was back, offering her a glass of water, slipping out of her jacket. She left the light off, city nightscape shining through the windows, casting the apartment into a dim half light. It felt like an in-between sort of world, not quite here, not quite there.

How strange, but how peaceful it was, not having anyone battering on her feelings, not having any pressure to feel a certain way.

"Hey," Jane said softly, moving in beside her. Her hand slid onto Alura's waist, and Alura set down her glass of water, to look at her. Jane's eyes were shadowy and dark, unreadable.

Alura leaned in, tracing her fingers in spiderwebs up her cheek. "Thank you for offering this."

"You're completely welcome."

Jane pushed up on her toes, and Alura cupped her face. She sealed her mouth across Jane's, and felt, finally, nothing more than her own arousal, her own desire, her own guilt and confusion, and, as she gripped the young woman's waist firmly, drawing her in so their hips pressed close, she did not have to hide any of it.

#

Rule two was leave as soon after sex as you can, but Alura was not inclined to go anywhere. She lay tangled up with the smaller body in the bed, sweat-slick and sex hot, mouthing lazily at the soft twists of hair right behind her ear. At each one, Jane let out a soft mumble, almost like a purr, protesting, but too warm and pleased to resist. Alura nibbled her ear a bit more sharply, and Jane yelped. She rolled over and glared, but her outrage melted into a lazy grin. Her gaze slid downwards and then lifted up again, her eyes dark and smirk suggestive.

"I don't know why people say it's not as good without a bond. Lots of times, I think it's better," she said.

Astra had said the same. Alura found it hard to deny the magic of the first time with a bond. Feelings accompanied by mutual desire could be overwhelming. Being able to feel what someone else felt had seemed full of possibility. But too quickly, people fell into patterns of behavior. Perhaps the possibility was still there, but it went unused. But what she liked best was having the space to get to know something new. This young woman’s body, absorbing and unfamiliar, deserved her full attention. You couldn’t give something that alluring only half your mind, distracting the other half with _feelings._

"I suppose so," Alura said. "Bonds make people boring. If you can tell something feels good, you just stick with it. When you don't have the direct feedback, you get creative."

"And you have to talk."

"You like to talk." Alura smiled as she said it. Jane had been voluble the whole way through, partly for boundaries, consent, clarity on preferences. But even once the preliminaries were gone, she rambled, giving enough verbal feedback that Alura had enjoyed wringing it out of her, her mutters of discomfort as much as her affirmations of pleasure.

Jane made an awkward face and tried to roll away. Alura caught her hip and pulled her back in, wrapping her up tight and pressing her nose to her ear.

"I like to hear you talk."

"You're one of the few."

Jane squirmed around in her arms, and Alura pinned her wrists, holding her down. Jane looked startled for a moment, but then stretched back lazily, putting herself on display. Alura leaned in, letting their noses hover close, but not kissing her.

"Oooh, getting creative?" Jane sassed her, tipping up her chin, fake biting at her nose, but not struggling against the pin on her wrists. "I could go for that."

"I just want to know how you'll talk when you're all tied up."

#

Alura had not intended to stay until morning. But creativity was tiring, and Jane had ended up passed out on top of her, warm and sated and a little marked up, and Alura hadn't felt enough urgency to fight her way out of the snare of sleep.

The sun and her hangover woke her though. "Oh _Rao_." Her head was pounding and her mouth tasted like year old milk.

"Coffee?" Jane was in a long t-shirt, padding barefoot around the studio. She poured some and offered Alura a chipped ceramic mug. She grimaced at it. "Sorry. I still have them out because they're going on the curb when the storage van gets here."

Alura took a sip and felt her headache recede. It was good coffee too, bitter like Astra's. Better than Zor made.

The thought of him made her stomach sink. She could tell he was still asleep. She hoped he had been asleep when she'd wrapped one arm around Jane's waist and put the other one up her shirt to feel her taut stomach. She searched for something else to put her mind on. "When are you leaving?" she asked.

"Tuesday."

The young woman's tone was stiff, and Alura felt the weight of it again. She carried so much already and again she was going off to war. These children should not have to go off to fight for lies and imaginary ideals. But she'd known that since Astra joined up. Her father had been so proud, but Alura could feel Astra's fear and panic and certainty and doubt all in equal measure. She'd tried to stop her, to question her, and Astra had slammed their bond shut. She'd _chosen_ , and how she felt didn't matter. Her choices mattered, not her feelings.

"Keep yourself and yours safe," Alura said, squeezing her arm.

Jane looked at her then, and something unexpected changed in her eyes. She swallowed and glanced away. "I'll do my best," she said. There was something raw in her tone too, as if she knew that Alura meant it, and also knew how hard it would be.

A half-bond? Alura hadn't wanted that, not in the least, but it didn't matter really. Bonds faded quickly with no reinforcement, and there was no chance of encountering this young woman again, not after Tuesday at least. After 18 months the bond would be long gone--if Jane even made it back.

Alura set down her coffee then drew the young woman in and kissed her cheek. Jane let her head rest on her shoulder. "I mean it," she whispered. "Wouldn't want to waste the way you beg on _military matters_."

Jane startled, sitting back, her cheeks going dark. She elbowed Alura in the side, then grinned up at her. For such a pretty, gentlemanly soldier-girl, she was soft, and let herself be open when it was only touch at stake. Alura liked that.

Jane kept herself busy as Alura dressed, politely not watching, but still paying attention. When Alura groaned at the prospect of putting on her heels again, Jane offered her a too large pair of flip-flops. An ex-boyfriend's perhaps? It wasn't any of her business.

"They were also going on the curb."

Alura accepted them. She didn't feel any urgency to leave. The small, impersonal apartment was a space outside of reality. All remnants of this would be gone on Tuesday, along with this soldier-girl. It was what it was, and it didn't have to mean anything. That, in itself, was a relief.

They stood a while near the sink. Jane offering her the last few forgotten items that remained in her cupboards. They split a long expired packet of pop-tarts and finished the whole pot of coffee. Alura spoke vaguely of her sister's affection for pop-tarts, and how she'd denied herself to prove herself better, and had to eat them in secret, and Jane laughed. "You're the older sister, aren't you? I just stole everything my sister liked."

There were spaces in their conversation, quiet ones, for Alura's daughter and Jane's father. But they didn't feel like emptinesses. And just because this didn't mean everything, it didn't seem meaningless either. The spaces were kind as well. Alura didn't have to be all of herself, with the assumptions and guilt that came with. She could just be the woman from the bar, just as Jane was the soldier-girl, quietly readying herself to leave.

Alura didn't know the etiquette for saying goodbye to a one-night-stand, so she leaned in and pressed a brief kiss against the young woman's lips. "Thank you."

Jane gave her a lazy, pleased grin. "My pleasure."

In the too large thongs, heels swinging at her side, Alura flopped ungracefully down the stairs and out the door, Jane laughing at her as she went.

At the corner of the street, Alura looked back and spotted Jane standing on her fire escape, staring into the distance, where the dawn sky had gone magenta and red with the rising sun. She was lost in it, and Alura, watching her, felt a slow clutch and bloom in her chest. She could feel it, the ache inside the warmth, the pleasure that hurt like she was choking.

It almost felt like _mono-no-aware_ , that desperate need to hold onto a moment of beauty, knowing that it, like all things, would pass.

Alura felt the feeling catch in her, reflect and double. These delicate things, risking death, wandering in this world where not even another sunrise was guaranteed.

The young woman glanced up, startled. She looked over, a wave of confusion and fear and guilt rushing through her. She hadn't wanted a bond as much as Alura hadn't.

But it didn't matter. It would fade.

Before Jane could spot her, Alura turned the corner and left her line of sight. She tightened down on the new bond until it was only a shadow. The shadow warmed with gratitude, and Alura smiled to herself as she headed down the steps to the nearest NCRT stop. She let the rattle of trains replace emotion with vibration.

Maybe being able to control your bonds wasn't a bad thing. Some people appreciated it.

She rummaged in her purse for her bracelet and slipped it back on. With the cold embrace of metal, a similarly cold weight settled on her chest. She was going back now, back to guarding herself, but trying to appear open, to unsatisfying sex and always expecting recrimination, waiting to be told that she was too aloof, to absorbed in unimportant things like work. She hadn't realized the extent of the weight until it returned. Astra had said that a casual hookup was supposed to make things with Zor easier to bear, but instead it only highlighted just how unhappy she was.

Maybe that had been the point.

She had to end it.

Responding only to the assurance in her, the small bond responded with assurance of its own, confidence in her choice, likely matched with confidence in her own choice to return to the war.

Alura liked the response of certainty to certainly. She was almost sorry the bond would fade.

#

**2 Years Later**

The start of the semester was always exhausting, and having Jorell glowering at her from across the table in faculty meetings didn't make things any easier. He could not forgive her for leaving his brother. Soulbonds weren't supposed to get divorced. An empathetic bond was a miracle for couple’s therapy. But after she'd told Zor she wanted to leave, he'd dragged her to counselor after counselor until she'd grown so tired of him trying to force his hurt feelings on her that she'd shut the bond entirely.

And that was really that.

Zor was fine now, sending her pictures of how he was nesting in his new apartment, calling her to civilly discuss whether Kara should be encouraged to join a soccer club in the fall. It was his brother, Jorell, who was still angry at her, and as her department chair he did his best to make her life hell.

"Excuse me." A young woman had appeared in her doorway.

Still a little annoyed by the thought of Jorell, Alura frowned at her. She was petite and well put together, in a blazer with a silky shell underneath. She held a leather bound case folder and a well-cared-for Jinhao fountain pen. The pen made Alura pause. Jinhao made good pens, inexpensive enough to start a collection, with smooth writing and only occasionally leaky cartridges. Alura had a few herself. It was entirely unscientific, but Alura liked people who liked nice pens. Along with this young woman came an unexpected sense of assuredness. Alura smiled.

"You're Alura In-Ze, right? I was told to contact you for temporary office space." She sounded busy and businesslike. Alura liked that too. Then she caught up to what had been said.

"Oh! Hello.” Somehow she hadn’t expected the new hire in military jurisprudence to be quite so pretty and confident. “Lucy Lane, right? Come in." Alura gestured her into the office, which, she admitted, was pleasantly large and sunlit. In a school more inclined to renovation it would probably have been split into two or three right now. "I'm so sorry we don't have regular office space. Certain _professors emerita_ have built themselves little dens and refuse to leave."

Lucy grinned at that. "I'm sure I can chase one out with a sharp enough stick."

Alura arched an eyebrow at her irreverence. "You may need a ferret too."

“I’ll rustle one up.”

There was a brightness to Lucy’s smile, a flare of promised warmth like a lit match in the darkness. It made an unexpected warmth rise in Alura also. She liked Lucy already, and pitied the professor whose office she set her sights on--only not too much.

"So actually--” Alura began. “--to be totally honest, I was going to protest this plan at the next meeting, but if you don't mind it, the second desk here is free. It's a little intimate, I know--" She gestured, shaping the arrangement of the room in the air. She had been deeply insulted when the idea was first suggested to her. She hadn’t even been on the hiring committee and had only skimmed the woman’s file, but Jorell had decided to back her resistance to sharing her office by saying, ‘Oh no, not Alura, we know she can’t get along with anybody,’ and she’d had to say, ‘Of course I am happy to share, _temporarily_ ,’ and glared at Jorell and sat on her annoyance. Maybe it was only the pen, but Alura didn't feel quite so resistant to the idea anymore. “--but it’s better than setting up a desk in the breakroom.”

Suddenly, Jorell himself loomed in the doorway.

"What is this!" he bellowed. "Zor told me that Kara told him that mutual bonds were an accident of biology and compatibility was a matter of choice!"

Irritated, Alura set her hands on her hips and stared him down. "Yes?" she said, hoping faintly that her new officemate would not immediately decide Alura was cold and unfeeling like the rest of the department already had. She was also rather pleased that Kara, after being very upset about the divorce, had apparently decided that Alura’s determination of the situation was correct.

"Just last year she was desperately hoping for her first bond, and you've ruined it for her!"

"Yes, Jorell," Alura said flatly. "It's terrible, I've destroyed my daughter's romantic soul. But if you'll excuse me, I am actually in a meeting?"

She gestured faintly to Lucy, who was watching the interaction with an unreadable expression on her face. At Alura’s cue, she smiled, holding out her hand for Jorell to shake. "Lucy Lane," she said. "I'm very excited to join your department. And to share this office with Dr. In-Ze."

It was unexpectedly pleasant to see Jorell's grimace at the sound of Dr + her maiden name. He had been even more offended than Zor when she'd gone back to it. But honestly, it was far beyond time. Having two professors with the same last name had been hard on the students.

"I do hope you'll knock though, once the semester starts. I mean--" Lucy smiled, but there was a threat in it. Alura felt a flicker of excitement, of daring--it wasn’t her own. "--what if I had been a student? Though it would be nice for all the students to know that the department chair is a romantic."

Jorell went stiff. Oh masculinity. Alura hid her smile. Hate the thought of breaking soulbonds, hate the thought of people knowing you had opinions about romance.

"Of course," Jorell said grouchily. "I hadn't known you'd arrived yet. Just-- family discussion with my sister-in-law."

"Ex-sister-in-law," Alura said flatly. "Anyways, if you'll excuse us?"

Jorell grumbled some pleasantries and recused himself from the room.

She turned and found Lucy watching her, a soft but intent look on her face. With her hair down and waved around her face, the perfectly put together lawyer uniform, the heels--nice heels--Alura could hardly recognize the soldier-girl she'd spent an evening with almost two years before.

Alura found that small space inside her, the one that strangely hadn't closed down, that had tasted of hardship and fear and such strength and focus and determination that she hadn't wanted it to disappear. It wasn't normal to maintain a casual bond for two years, never seeing the other person, not knowing their name. But it was still there. She opened it up.

The tangled bemusement she was met with tasted nearly the same as her own.

"You're divorced now?" Lucy asked, an unfamiliar hesitance to her words.

Alura nodded, having no idea where this was going, but not allowing herself to be afraid or hopeful, just steady, even-keeled. "You made it back."

"Yeah," Lucy ducked her head and stuck her hand into her hair, unsettling the perfect waves, revealing the anxiety that tasted like acid-drops. "I'm sorry. I hung on to you a bit. It was _nice_ to have some feelings that were steady. I liked yours. They were like an ASMR for focus."

Alura laughed suddenly, surprised. "Well, that's new. But I like that, that's my goal from now on, maintain the emotional consistency of an ASMR."

Lucy laughed too, her cheeks darkening, her emotions warming. "It's a good goal. I'll join you. If you're . . . still okay with sharing an office with me, we can make it an incredibly efficient place to be."

Alura watched her for a long moment. She was still incredibly pretty, and even with the bond active and open there was enough restraint in it that she was a mystery. But she wasn’t just a girl in a bar anymore, she was a colleague. This was complicated, and after her very complicated and difficult divorce Alura didn’t want anything complicated--and if Jorell found out how they’d met initially, it would be complicated _and_ full of yelling.

And yet, there was something about Lucy that felt reliable. She kept her emotions to herself. She followed through on her decisions. Even if it didn’t work out, Alura thought she could count on Lucy to stay professional.

"I see no reason to change the arrangement. I'm sure we can be . . . collegial."

Lucy tipped her head as if she’d read something in her words and her feelings that Alura might not have intended to put there. "Okay," she said. She darted a sharp look at Alura, at the photo of her and Kara on Alura's desk, at the evidence of a real person with a real life, not just a bond built on shadows and lies of omission. Then she faced her, jaw set, the solidity of her determination a comfort, not a strain. "And . . . perhaps I can take you out for a collegial dinner?"

Automatically, Alura tightened down hard on the bond, trying to restrain the flutter of panic that was her first reaction to being asked on a date. Friend-bonds and casual hookups were one thing, but _dating--_ She knew she was too late, knew Lucy would have felt it, but Lucy didn’t react, she just waited, as if it didn’t matter how Alura felt. It mattered what she said. That made the panic fade. Without the distraction of feeling too much, it was easy to choose.

Alura nodded. "I'd like that."

Lucy's pleasure brightened, making the whole room feel light. "And then maybe as colleagues we can . . . spend some time together. Creatively."

Alura laughed. "Let's see how dinner goes first."

"Sounds good," Lucy's eyes went dark and pleased. "Though I mean, really, if compatibility is a matter of choice, I'm definitely going to choose someone who isn't afraid to get out the handcuffs on the first date. So, you might have competition."

Alura narrowed her eyes at the teasing. "I think you should recall that you have no reason to doubt our compatibility in that area."

"Excellent," Lucy sassed her. "I'm looking forward to your presentation of the evidence, counselor."

"I'm looking forward to occupying your mouth with something besides words."

Lucy's eyes were bright and excited, and Alura realized that she had forgotten how this felt, the pleasure of _liking_ someone, of wanting to know them, of not believing in the chains of destiny, but in choosing to hope that an unexpected connection could mean something, and could continue to mean something good for a long time.

And, well, there were some things she already knew about Lucy, and she was looking forward to reminding herself of them. From the heat-tinged pleasure unfurling like a young leaf in her chest, Alura was pretty certain that Lucy was too.

Jorell would probably never forgive her if she had sex in her office. But, to be honest, the thought of his shocked and indignant face and Astra's amused approval only made the prospect more appealing.

###


End file.
